Structure members used in the construction of buildings, aircraft, ships or any other machine or plant may have internal or interfacial defects which may not be obvious to the naked eye. In many instances, these defects may affect the strength or load tolerance of these structure members and thus it would be desirable to identify the presence of such defects in any structure member before it is put in use.
Although various methods exist to identify defects in any particular structure, these methods are inefficient or costly as time used to scan for defects is often a valuable resource in any construction or maintenance project. In addition to these difficulties, structure members that are already in use, including those that are already secured in a specific position, may not be readily removable or accessible for analysis.